


Where are we now?

by Laura JV (jacquez)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Post-Season/Series 04, Queerplatonic Relationships, get out of my house you reptile, moral particularism, you should have stayed away from sherlock holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 22:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15471945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquez/pseuds/Laura%20JV
Summary: all John's violence, raining tears upon the sheets





	Where are we now?

**Author's Note:**

> _The Non-Linear Gothic Drama Hyper-Cycle_ is a set of thematically connected stories, but each story is a standalone. Each story was canon-compliant at the time it was written. This particular story is canon-compliant through Series 4. This story has not been britpicked. Thanks to Basingstoke for the readthrough.

 

  1. **as long as there's sun (as long as there's you)**



 

Rosie turned one without her mother, with Molly and John singing to her in some kind of sick parody of happy families. After Rosie was tucked in her cot for an afternoon nap, John made tea, and he and Molly sat at his kitchen table, holding hands, letting the tea go cold. "She's a lovely child, John," Molly said. 

 

"I couldn't do this without you," John said. "You've been -- a true friend."

 

Molly squeezed his hand. She did not say _ Where's Sherlock _ . She never spoke of Sherlock anymore, not if she could help it. After Sherrinford, he and Sherlock had gone to her flat, found her outside, wrapped in an oversized jumper, weeping.The bomb squad was still inside. "For a case," she said to Sherlock, when she spotted them.

 

"Molly," he said, "I am so, so sorry. I didn't know. She said she would kill you." He held out his hand, and she took it, and he reeled her in, cradled her against him, breath puffing cold in the chill autumn air. "I can't love you the way you want," he said, rocking her as she sobbed into his chest. "I'm so sorry, Molly. I keep hurting you. I'm sorry."

 

As far as John knew, they hadn't seen each other since. 

 

He helped Molly on with her coat, and she sniffled a bit as she settled her scarf 'round her neck, blinking back tears. "You're a good man, John," she said.

 

"Am I?" he asked, and she kissed his cheek, and was gone.

 

Later that night, he found himself at Baker Street, holding a sleepy Rosie in his arms. Sherlock let them in and made John tea, into which he poured a generous tot of whiskey. The scar between his eyebrows had faded to a narrow line, but John remembered his skin splitting there, under his fist. 

 

The front room was still only half-finished, rolls of wallpaper against the wall, a plastic dust curtain dividing it from the kitchen. John rocked Rosie as she yawned. "I've finished your bedroom," Sherlock said. "Give her here, there's a cot for her in it."  He poured more whiskey into a fresh cup of tea and traded it for an armful of sleepy toddler.

 

Then he vanished up the stairs, to put Rosie to bed in the room where John had lived, once, a lifetime ago. When he came back downstairs, he rested his hand between John's shoulderblades without saying a word, until John raised his head.

 

"I was a bloody awful husband, wasn't I?"

 

"Well, Mary was a bloody awful wife," Sherlock said. "You weren't cut out for it, either of you, any more than I am. What a team we made, the three of us." He poured whiskey into his empty teacup, tossed it back like a shot.

 

John rubbed his forehead. "We could have been happy," he said.

 

"No, you couldn't," Sherlock said. "You and Mary both missed war too much. It's why you loved each other." He set his teacup down. "It's why both of you tried to kill me, and why both of you love -- loved -- me."

 

John drew a long, shuddering breath. "I still love you, you mad bastard." Sherlock said nothing. "How," John said, after a moment that seemed to stretch forever before him, endless time looping around him, so that he had been there, forever, at Sherlock's scarred and stained kitchen table, "how can I give Rosie the life that she deserves? An ordinary life. Given Mary. Given -- given me."

 

Sherlock leaned in, down, pulled John's chair around and loomed over him. "You cannot," he said, fiercely. "You  _ cannot _ . You are -- John, you are not what I am, but you are extraordinary in your own way. You have lived -- will continue to live -- an extraordinary life. Young Watson will live it with you. With us."

 

"God knows I tried to cut you out of my life," John said. "Without you, there was hope. For me. For Rosie."

 

Sherlock slammed his hands down onto John's thighs, going to a crouch in front of him. "No, John," he ground out. "You didn't like that at all. It's not nearly enough for you, the quiet life, the tiny back garden and roses round the door, the divorced mums at Rosie's nursery lingering _ just a little too long _ \--." His fingers clenched, digging into John's muscles. "Listen to me. Listen to yourself. Think about who you are, who Mary was. Think about me, about who  _ Mycroft _ is. Do you think there's the slightest chance the British government will let your daughter live an ordinary life?" 

 

John pulled Sherlock's hands from his thighs, shoved Sherlock from him and followed after him, crowding him against the wall, his hands rough on Sherlock's arms. "I won't let them." He knew as soon as he said it that it was futile, that of course, one day, Mycroft would look at Rosie and see not a child, but an asset. Perhaps he already had.

 

Sherlock shook his head. "Do you think she has a choice? No, better prepare her. For an extraordinary life. For her real life." He twisted his arms and pushed John's body away from his, just the slightest bit, just enough for cool air to slide between them.

 

"I could sacrifice even you, for her," John said, and let Sherlock go, watched him slump against the new paint of the kitchen wall, one strong hand splayed over his chest. 

  
  


* * *

  1. **all my violence (or in a season of crime)**



 

John knew what people saw, when they looked at him. Soft jumpers, soft hands, soft blue eyes and soft hair, going softly silver at the temples. They saw his wedding ring and the lines of grief on his face and the way he held his daughter on his side, and they thought they knew everything.  
  
_I married an assassin,_ he wanted to tell the mothers of Rosie's friends from nursery, especially the divorced ones who lingered just a little too long. _I've lost count of how many people I've killed. Sometimes I dream of beating her godfather to death. I've tried to beat him unconscious more than once and I still remember the feel of his throat under my hands and his ribs cracking under my boots._ __  
  
He never said it, no matter how much it bit at the back of his throat. Instead, he tried to forget Sherlock's hand on the back of his neck, Sherlock's arms hauling him out of a well and holding him close for a second too long, Sherlock's back hitting a brick wall, a kitchen wall, the false-death slam of a body against the sidewalk --   
  
He could never forget splitting Sherlock's skin with his knuckles, and did not bother to try.   
  
"When are you moving back in, John?" Sherlock asked, as John helped him finish restoring the flat at 221B. There were bullet holes in the wall, yellow spray paint still sticky to the touch. "It's quite safe for young Watson. Look, I've put locks on everything. I've childproofed the stove -- did you know there was childproofing for stoves?"  
  
"I'm not coming back," John answered. "Rosie'll mutilate your violin. You know you'll leave it out. I can't be responsible for that." Sherlock's mouth tightened.   
  
"You want to," Sherlock said, "and I cannot work out why you won't." His voice shivered down John's spine, and John knew the tell-tale muscle in his jaw spoke eloquently to Sherlock's eyes.  
  
The past year had worn John's body to spareness. A man his age might reasonably expect to put on a little, but instead he had burned away. He did not know how to say _I cannot come back here, because Rosie needs a father who is more than your tame killer_ \-- and his mind choked itself off. _Tame_. As if he'd been tame, as if he hadn't been barely pulled away from putting his boot into Sherlock's face. He tilted his head back and looked up at Sherlock, who was standing too close, breathing John's air.   
  
"Ah," said Sherlock. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't be good for Watson to have an atmosphere of violence in the home, but I know you're capable of great restraint, John." He, unlike John, had put on weight -- he was trim, rather than bony, his old blue dressing-gown snug across his shoulders. "I thought, when you helped me put the place back together, that it meant you were coming back to me."   
  
"You make it sound as if we were lovers," John said. They'd pressed together in the dark often enough, their breath coming hot and short in the space between them -- but they'd been hunting then, or hunted. _Everyone thought we were lovers,_ he did not say. He twitched his scarred fingers, and Sherlock took one step closer, took his left hand and lifted it. His hands were warm and calloused.   
  
"Lovers," Sherlock scoffed. " _You_ think a lover would _complete_ me. You don't understand. _I. Have. You_. Who else do you think I need?" He turned John's hand over in his. "Perfectly steady," he said. "I give you an outlet, John. A way to channel what you are, keep it away from your daughter." He was close enough that John could feel the heat of his body. "Our home can be a safe place for her," he said.  
  
"You're an addict," John began, and Sherlock interrupted.  
  
"Yes, I've stopped, thank you, I won't do anything around her, you know I would never--"  
  
"No," said John. "No, that's not -- I mean, Sherlock. Sherlock. Look at me. __Look at me. You can't --" He swallowed, hard, unable to speak, but he'd said enough. Sherlock stepped backwards, his face gone still, his eyes moving rapidly, searching.  
  
"Well," he said, softly. "Well. We all have our addictions, don't we?" He was silent for a long moment, then turned, impatience in every line of his body, waving his hand at the room around them. "Mycroft believes that I -- that I suppressed -- well, feelings, ordinary human feelings, because of what Eurus did when we were children."  
  
"Didn't you?"   
  
Sherlock inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring. "I certainly -- stopped caring, for a  very long time. Until you. This is not--" he gestured between them-- "not entirely dysfunctional. You and I." He stopped, breathing hard, and John watched him warily. He seemed poised to say something that John was sure he was not going to like. "We were more stable, with Mary," Sherlock said. "A tripod. We almost had it worked out, the three of us, with you as the moral center, our conductor, John, we almost had it --"

 

"No," John said. He was shaking--  _ Good God, man, pull yourself together, you are a soldier in Her Majesty's _ \-- "You and Mary, you both-- tried to make me a...a center in your moral universe."He squared his shoulders. "You cannot turn me into that. I've tried, God knows I've tried, Sherlock, but I am-- just a man." He swallowed, trying to keep his hands open. "Sherlock," he said again, stumbling over the name, "Sherlock, I nearly cracked under the strain of it." He centered himself, exhaling, feeling the floorboards flex under his feet. "I wanted to be that, but I -- " He looked away, as if Sherlock's eyes burned him.

 

"I've known since the beginning," Sherlock said, "that you had strong moral character. There were times when I used that against you. And Eurus used it against you, and I won't be like that, I won't do that to you --"

 

John interrupted. "She used  _ your _ moral sense," he said, "against  _ you _ ."

 

"No."

 

"Yes." He poked Sherlock in the chest. "You have a sense of rightness, of -- finding moral solutions to problems where normal principles do not seem to apply. You always have. We're both of us -- bad at being human, sometimes. But I -- I deduced you, Sherlock. You're not a sociopath, you know. You never have been."

 

"I am."

 

"You're not. What your sister took from you as a child does not define you, not anymore. You're petty and vindictive and horribly rude, but that's -- not the same thing at all. You're -- infuriating. Some days I can't tell if we're friends or if I want to kill you. I am -- the things I want to do to you, sometimes."

 

Sherlock's chin jerked; his tongue touched his lower lip. "John, you know I don't--"

  
The willful misunderstanding was -- John spun and punched the wall. At least this time he hadn't struck Sherlock, so that was something. The scars on his knuckles split and bled, and the bones in his hand throbbed. "This is why I can't come back," he said, leaning his forehead against the wall, leaning his weight on his throbbing fist. "I don't mean get off with you, you cock. I mean. Take you apart into component pieces. Bury you under the floorboards." He could feel his ribs expanding, compressing again. Breathing too deeply and too calmly, for all the rising of his pulse. _ You should have run, that first day, and never returned. You should have stayed away from Sherlock Holmes.  _ __  
  
"If you don't come back," Sherlock said, "you will destroy yourself." He was too close, again, almost brushing against John's back, his hands on John's shoulders. "You cannot spend your life both needing what I have to offer, and wanting to kill me for offering it." He turned John to face him. "If I swear not to provoke you again-- not to invite you to hurt me--" 

 

"Oh, God," John said, and tore away from him, down the stairs, out into the street, anything to put distance between them.    
  


* * *

  1. **the moment you know (as long there's me)**



 

There was a black car waiting one evening when he and Rosie arrived home. Mycroft's current assistant was a tall woman who wore her hair in a short Afro and only ever made eye contact with Rosie. Her name was Donna, although John only knew that from Mycroft's soft-voiced commands. She took Rosie into the tiny back garden, leaving John alone with Mycroft. He crossed his arms and waited; Mycroft shared Sherlock's impatience, and rarely managed to wait John out. 

 

"A triad," said Mycroft, after only a few seconds. "Something to consider, Dr. Watson."

 

John shook his head. He knew that one. "No. The word you are looking for is 'triangulation'. In its psychological sense." 

 

Mycroft's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, come now. Two people, such as you and my little brother, are inherently unstable. Consider a third, why don't you? Neither of you can continue, alone. If nothing else, those horrible events with our sister should have showed you that. Surely you can...use me in this regard, Dr. Watson. In the absence of your late wife."   
  


"No," John said again, breathing deeply, calmly, into the spaces between his ribs. His pulse was steady but the fingernails of his hands bit into his palms.

 

"Pity that Eurus is so truly broken, so truly conscienceless," Mycroft continued, inspecting his umbrella. "She would have made a marvelous third for the two of you, if only she could have been convinced to share." He smiled. "That was the wonderful thing about Mary. You and she were both exceptionally dangerous --"

 

"That is enough," said John. His hand was bleeding; he could feel the half-healed cuts on his knuckles opening, and the tiny crescent-moon slices in his palm. He went into the garden and knelt down in front of Rosie. 

 

"Da," she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He could smell her hair, finger-paints, crushed apples. His own blood, leaving soft smears on her grimy winter coat. He could hear Mycroft, tapping his umbrella on the walk, and he stood up, holding Rosie close. 

 

"I'll thank you to stay out of this," John said.

 

"He's  _ my brother _ ," Mycroft said, anger and warning in his voice.

 

"Like I said. Triangulation," John said, pulling back and smiling at Rosie, keeping his voice light. Rosie giggled and patted him on the cheek. "Now, isn't it time for your supper, my love?" He looked at Mycroft over her head.  _ I will fight you, for Sherlock and for my daughter. _ Mycroft looked very like his brother when he was thwarted.

 

Late that night, after Rosie was asleep, John's phone chimed. 

 

_ Bicycles are stable in motion. --SH _

 

John spent the night in the kitchen, staring out the window at the back garden, thinking of Rosie running there under Donna's gimlet eye. He remembered Mary, setting Rosie on a blanket on the first warm spring day after she was born, taking pictures, texting them to Sherlock, laughing. 

 

He closed his eyes, and thought of Rosie pressing their open hands together, his own voice saying "Proximal phalanges, distal phalanges," tracing over the bones of her hand. "Metacarpophalangeal joints. You see I have scars on mine, Rosie, but yours are perfect."

 

He rang Molly. "Would you still visit," he said, "if I moved back into Baker Street? With Sherlock."

 

"Obviously, with Sherlock," she said, her voice tinny over the connection. "And yes. It's easier now, to be honest, now that I've blubbered all over him about it." She was silent, a moment. "You ought to try it. Get it all out of your system."

 

"Yeah, I already did that bit,"John said, thinking of Sherlock holding him, the press of his head against John's, the rumble of his chest as he said  _ It is what it is _ .

 

* * *

 

  1. **darkest to fall (the walls shall have eyes)**



 

They moved in on a day when Sherlock was visiting Eurus, without notifying anyone beforehand. Molly hired the van and helped him pack. "You'd think Mycroft would have learned to pay attention to you by now," John said, and she grinned at him over a box of Rosie's toys.

 

"Mycroft's an idiot," she said. "He won't even be watching the flat today, since Sherlock's not there. We have nearly a clear field."

 

At four in the afternoon, after Molly had gone home, John's phone buzzed. 

 

_ What do you think you are doing, Dr. Watson? M _

 

The helicopter must have landed, then; Sherlock would be home soon, and Mycroft was prying.

 

John changed Rosie's nappy while she chewed on a toy giraffe. The cot Sherlock had put in the upstairs bedroom, months ago now, barely fit next to John's bed. "What are we going to do," he asked her, "when you need more space? We'll be in trouble then, my love." Rosie, giraffe hanging out of her mouth, smiled up at him. 

 

_ Dr. Watson. M _

 

John wiped his hands and picked up his phone from where he'd left it; tapped out  _ What does it look like I'm doing? _

 

_ That is not the question I asked. M _

 

John picked Rosie up. His phone buzzed again, and he looked at the screen while balancing her on one hip.

 

_ Nothing has changed. M _

 

John dropped the phone to the bed. "Who you think I am," he said, tugging gently at Rosie's giraffe, "is who I want to be. Your mother thought I liked to save people, you know. She was wrong. Well, not all the way wrong, I suppose. But I've decided I can save myself. Or let Sherlock save me. Or you. You'd do a marvelous job, with a little training." She grabbed his nose. She was strong and solid, coordinated, a fast runner, with Mary's eyes and Mary's firm, unforgiving mouth; Mary's wide and unexpected smile. She would have an extraordinary life. 

 

He heard a commotion below, and then Sherlock, shouting -- "John? John!" and footsteps bounding up the stairs. The bedroom door slammed open. "John. Of course. I -- good. You're here." He swallowed, and dropped his eyes. "I meant it," he said. "I won't provoke you. Not in any way--" 

 

"Shut up," John said. "You -- shut up, Sherlock." He juggled Rosie on his hip. "You can't just -- not provoke me. You're provoking." He looked down at Rosie's face. "But I'm here. I want to be here. With you."

 

When he looked back up, Sherlock was standing too close, always, always too close. Always too far. He wrapped his hand around the base of John's neck, pressed in, his fingernails scraping John's hairline. "You're not dangerous to me," he said. "Not anymore. Not now that you know who you want to be." He shook John, a little, his thumb rubbing a circle under John's ear. His eyes darted sideways, and then back. "Sleep downstairs."

 

"What?" 

 

"Sleep downstairs. With me. When she gets old enough to need her own space. You're worried about that. Don't be."

 

"Sherlock--"

 

"You know perfectly well I don't mean have sex with me, John." He slid his fingers against John's skin. "Just. Sleep downstairs."

 

John inhaled, sharply, through his nose, and then nodded. "All right." He stepped back and shoved Rosie into Sherlock's arms. "Here, take her. Go on down, get out of my hair while I finish setting up in here." 

 

"Yes," said Sherlock, and then "You hear that, young Watson? We're in the way. Awful business. Shall we drop in on Mrs. Hudson? I think she may have biscuits just out of the oven." 

 

When his footsteps had gone, John texted Mycroft.  _ Stop standing in the way, before you get run down. _

 

_ Bicycles are stable in motion,  _ he thought, and laughed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Section titles, and the story title, are drawn from _Strangers When We Meet, Sue (or In a Season of Crime), Slow Burn_ , and _Where Are We Now?_ , songs by David Bowie.


End file.
